Whoopi Goldberg defends NFL star’s right, says Harrison Butker, Colin Kaepernick deserve equal respect for expressing views

defend Butker’s right to free speech — even if she staunchly opposes his spoken perspective.

“I like when people say what they need to say. He’s at a Catholic college, he’s a staunch Catholic. These are his beliefs and he’s welcome to them. I don’t have to believe them,

I don’t have to accept them, the ladies that were sitting in that audience don’t have to accept them,” the 68-year-old said. “The same way we want respect whentakes a knee, we want to give respect to people whose ideas are different from ours because the man who says he wants to be president, You-Know-Who, he says the way to act is to take away people’s right to say how they feel. We don’t want to be that, we don’t want to be those people.

“She also said she disagreed with Goldberg’s comparison to Kaepernick, who previously courted controversy in conservative circles when he refused to stand at NFL games for the National Anthem to protest police brutality in America. Haines called the former San Francisco 49ers player’s actions as “standing up for the rights of many and saying, in a social justice moment, a reminder that we’re not there yet,” while she criticized Butker for being “divergent from the majority of Catholics” when he disparaged other people with his words.